John Wesley

Wesley called attention to the inward, experiential dimension of faith. This emphasis was in part a reaction to the Calvinism that permeated the social and political life of the English world in the seventeenth century. Also undergirding the movement was the “living faith” Wesley imbibed from his encounter with German Pietism. Wesley’s contact with the Moravians, Pietists within eighteenth-century Lutheranism that drew from Catholic mysticism, gave him an awareness for the emotional dimension of faith. This led to his personal conversion, during which as he described, “I felt my heart strangely warmed.”[1] Wesley understood the Christian life as consisting of two separate experiences of grace—conversion (or justification), and Christian perfection (or sanctification). The first, justifying grace, covered over all the “actual sin” one had committed. Sanctifying grace, on the other hand, was given for the “residue” of sin that remained after one became a Christian—the inherited (original sin) from Adam.[2] According to Wesley, sanctifying grace occurred subsequent to the justifying grace of conversion. Wesley refers to the reality of this subsequent sanctifying experience as “Christian perfection,” “perfect love,” and “heart purity.”[3] While this experience is gradual and works itself out over the entirety of the Christian life, as Peter Althouse explains, there is also an instantaneous dimension of sanctification for Wesley. It is this latter “crisis” sense that undergirds the Holiness view of sanctification and the Pentecostal baptism in the Spirit.[4]

Three devotionals from Kirk Hunt’s book, Blessed and Blessing: Devotionals for Gospel Champions (CadreMen Press, 2015).

David’s First Anointing

David’s Second Anointing

David’s Third Anointing

Blessed and Blessing, Devotionals for Gospel Champions

The Kingdom of God is built by the hands and hearts of Gospel Champions. These devotionals are focused on the faithful and courageous men and women who answer God’s call on their lives. Often the least recognized, these Christian servants are the hands, feet and face of God’s present-day Kingdom. Some of the devotions encourage servants to answer His call, then prepare for their mission tasks. Other devotionals address working with others on the frontlines of the Gospel mission. There are devotionals related to finishing in continuing strength and steady faith. Some devotions include Scriptural medicine and reassurance for those who stumble while serving. The servants who bless others are often more blessed than they know. These teachings help Gospel champions recognize and use the gifts God has already given to them. This book benefits the men and women who deliver God’s answers to the physical and spiritual needs around them.

A devotional from Kirk Hunt’s book, Blessed and Blessing: Devotionals for Gospel Champions (CadreMen Press, 2015).

David’s First Anointing

Therefore all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord. And they anointed David king over Israel, according to the word of the Lord by Samuel.
1 Chronicles 11:3 NKJV

The pomp and circumstance of 1 Chronicles 11 and 12 is a highlight in Scripture. The roll calls of valiant men and mighty tribes highlights the weight of David’s leadership. More importantly, it details God’s glory in Israel.

David’s anointing came from God. The great gathering and celebration is really worship and praise of God. Any celebration of anointing must be aimed at the Source, not the servant.

David’s long years of selfless service as a loyal soldier for King Saul, then as an outlaw-protector, are fulfilled in the coronation celebration. David had long since become a noble-leader and warrior-king. This third anointing is mere recognition of the clear and obvious truth of David’s life.

Your third anointing recognizes what has already been true. Your faithful service. Your loyal fulfillment of Kingdom duties. Your empowerment through the Holy Spirit.

Enjoy the celebration. God is receiving worship and glory in the ceremony. Remember, your anointing comes from Him, for His purpose. He chose you and is your source.

Think:

God is the source and purpose of my anointing.

Pray:

“Lord, help me to remember You are the Source and Purpose of my anointing.”

Blessed and Blessing, Devotionals for Gospel Champions

The Kingdom of God is built by the hands and hearts of Gospel Champions. These devotionals are focused on the faithful and courageous men and women who answer God’s call on their lives. Often the least recognized, these Christian servants are the hands, feet and face of God’s present-day Kingdom. Some of the devotions encourage servants to answer His call, then prepare for their mission tasks. Other devotionals address working with others on the frontlines of the Gospel mission. There are devotionals related to finishing in continuing strength and steady faith. Some devotions include Scriptural medicine and reassurance for those who stumble while serving. The servants who bless others are often more blessed than they know. These teachings help Gospel champions recognize and use the gifts God has already given to them. This book benefits the men and women who deliver God’s answers to the physical and spiritual needs around them.

This devotional from Kirk Hunt’s book, Blessed and Blessing: Devotionals for Gospel Champions (CadreMen Press, 2015), is reprinted here with permission. Copyright © by Kirk Hunt and CadreMen Press.

A devotional from Kirk Hunt’s book, Blessed and Blessing: Devotionals for Gospel Champions (CadreMen Press, 2015).

David’s First Anointing

Then the men of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah.
2 Samuel 2:4a NKJV

David’s second anointing came during a time of personal sorrow and national disunity. The men of Judah officially recognized David as their king. Benjamin, David’s own tribe, did not. All of the rest of Israel? Absent.

Still mourning the death of Saul and Jonathan, David took on the weight of his kingship. With tact, compassion and diplomacy, David sought to consolidate Israel under a single government. No small task.

The private anointing at 1 Samuel 16: 12-13 was necessary for David’s development. This second anointing publicly confirmed David as king. This anointing carried David from learner to leader.

Anointing is not a static, once-and-forever event in your life. As God moves you through His path and process, things change. You change. Your anointing changes.

As king, David’s sphere changed. No longer a mercenary captain, he became a regal king. He stopped working with the few and began working with the many. And this change did not end David’s story.

If you are one of God’s anointed, your story is not over. This season in your life is orchestrated by God. Your next season will be arranged by God as well. Your second anointing is another beginning, not an end.

Think:  

As I move through God’s plan, my anointing will change.

Pray:

“Lord, help me to fulfill Your call and anointing in my life.”

Blessed and Blessing, Devotionals for Gospel Champions

The Kingdom of God is built by the hands and hearts of Gospel Champions. These devotionals are focused on the faithful and courageous men and women who answer God’s call on their lives. Often the least recognized, these Christian servants are the hands, feet and face of God’s present-day Kingdom. Some of the devotions encourage servants to answer His call, then prepare for their mission tasks. Other devotionals address working with others on the frontlines of the Gospel mission. There are devotionals related to finishing in continuing strength and steady faith. Some devotions include Scriptural medicine and reassurance for those who stumble while serving. The servants who bless others are often more blessed than they know. These teachings help Gospel champions recognize and use the gifts God has already given to them. This book benefits the men and women who deliver God’s answers to the physical and spiritual needs around them.

This devotional from Kirk Hunt’s book, Blessed and Blessing: Devotionals for Gospel Champions (CadreMen Press, 2015), is reprinted here with permission. Copyright © by Kirk Hunt and CadreMen Press.

A devotional from Kirk Hunt’s book, Blessed and Blessing: Devotionals for Gospel Champions (CadreMen Press, 2015).

Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah.
1 Samuel 16:13 NKJV

Traditionally, during his first anointing, David was a teenager. Neither Jesse nor his family had enough influence or wealth to make one of his sons a king to Israel. Certainly, no one expected much from, or for, the youngest son of Jesse’s brood.

King Saul had already rejected God. Saul’s error and disobedience ended his kingship and dynasty. God commanded that Saul be replaced, before David’s name appears in 1 Samuel.

Anointing is more than being marked or set-aside. Anointing is being placed under the divine influence and empowerment of God. Clearly, the power of God’s Spirit impacted David’s life.

Divine empowerment, anointing, is an act of God’s choosing. Whom does God anoint? Saints, with sincere hearts, who proactively seek Him. They are men and women who use the best of their time, talent and treasure to build the Kingdom.

The best part is that anointing is not reserved for an elite few. Common men and women can dare to seek God’s Heart and make themselves available for His service. God anointed a young boy, with sheep dung on his sandals. Surely, you can approach His Throne and ask.

At God’s direction, Samuel poured oil on David’s head. Before God spoke to Samuel, He saw the sincere and heartfelt devotion of a mere shepherd boy. God’s sovereign will chooses His anointed. Why not you?

Think:  

God chooses whom He will anoint.

Pray:

“Lord, help me to live in, and seek, Your anointing.”

Blessed and Blessing, Devotionals for Gospel Champions

The Kingdom of God is built by the hands and hearts of Gospel Champions.  These devotionals are focused on the faithful and courageous men and women who answer God’s call on their lives.  Often the least recognized, these Christian servants are the hands, feet and face of God’s present-day Kingdom.  Some of the devotions encourage servants to answer His call, then prepare for their mission tasks.  Other devotionals address working with others on the frontlines of the Gospel mission.  There are devotionals related to finishing in continuing strength and steady faith.  Some devotions include Scriptural medicine and reassurance for those who stumble while serving.  The servants who bless others are often more blessed than they know.  These teachings help Gospel champions recognize and use the gifts God has already given to them.  This book benefits the men and women who deliver God’s answers to the physical and spiritual needs around them.

This devotional from Kirk Hunt’s book, Blessed and Blessing: Devotionals for Gospel Champions (CadreMen Press, 2015), is reprinted here with permission. Copyright © by Kirk Hunt and CadreMen Press.

Close exegesis of Galatians, with due attention to past scholarship on the subject, is among the most daunting tasks in the study of the New Testament. And yet a proper understanding of Galatians is centrally important for grasping Paul’s view of the gospel. To make a fresh contribution to the crowded field of Galatians requires a great deal of patience, a command of a wide band of scholarship, and perhaps a bit of creativity.

Chee-Chiew Lee’s study on the relation of the Spirit to justification in Galatians is a worthy contribution to the field. Lee challenges the view that Paul equated Abraham’s blessing with the Spirit in Gal 3:14. The two are related, but not equal (chap. 2). Their more precise relationship, Lee reasons, might be gleaned from a survey of the remaining sections of the Old Testament and from later Jewish writings. According to Lee, writings (roughly) contemporary with Paul allowed that the Abrahamic blessing accorded certain benefits to the proselyte, but that the blessing of the Spirit was always withheld – reserved for the native Jew. Paul’s insistence on the outpouring of the Spirit upon the Gentiles therefore radicalizes the place of Gentiles within the community of saints. Lee argues that, while few in Paul’s day read Scripture that way, Paul’s view is afforded by passages like Isa 56:3-7 and Zech 2:15 [LXX 2:11], in which those nations that have “joined themselves” to God are referred to as “the people of Yahweh” (p. 189). If other Second Temple Jews missed the Isaian and Zecharian connection between the Spirit and the turning of the nations toward Israel’s God, Paul did not miss it. (This line of reasoning is consistent with a recent trend in Pauline studies, which is to allow careful exegesis of the Old Testament to serve as a palette [of sorts] for understanding Paul’s exegetical mind.)

According to Lee, “the blessing of Abraham is identified with justification, and the Spirit functions as the evidence of receiving the blessing and the means of perpetuating the blessing” (p. 210). Such a view, of course, brings to mind certain ongoing debates about Pauline pneumatology. It will be interesting to see if Lee’s arguments about the shape of Paul’s pneumatology within Galatians come to play a role in those debates.

Reviewed by John Poirier

Publisher’s page: http://wipfandstock.com/the-blessing-of-abraham-the-spirit-and-justification-in-galatians.html

Preview The Blessing of Abraham, the Spirit, and Justification in Galatians: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Blessing_of_Abraham_the_Spirit_and_J.html?id=IxJNAwAAQBAJ

Keith Augustus Burton, The Blessing of Africa: The Bible and African Christianity (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 294 pages, ISBN 9780830827626.

The recent increase of books about the African continent might seem almost mind boggling for readers interested in learning about Africa and its relevance to Christian theology. Just where does one begin? Thankfully, a reader might just want to begin here.

To an ever increasing collection of media comes a short yet comprehensive perspective for beginners and experts alike. While Burton’s viewpoint is by no means exhaustive or encyclopedic, it offers “a brief survey of the historical place of the Bible in the rhetorical land of Ham.” It offers information “…about biblical ‘Africans’ and significant ‘African people’ and events throughout the history of humanity.” It also places the story of the Bible and African Christianity in the wider global context (13).

Keith Augustus Burton, Ph.D., (Northwestern) is president of Life Heritage Ministries. He is also adjunct instructor of religion at the Florida Hospital College of Health Sciences and coordinator for the Center for Adventist-Muslim Relations at Oakwood University, where he previously served as a professor of theology.

Burton also promises that this book lacks “a reactionary Afro centric agenda.” He stresses that it does not seek to repudiate, but rather to agitate and educate (12). His work truly provides a perspective about the seamless relationship of Africa to the Biblical world, a connection that has been too often ignored by Western thinkers. So as a result, his work serves an ecumenical purpose. He wishes to draw Black Africans into greater solidarity “with their lighter skinned Hamitic siblings in the northernmost sections of modern continental Africa and the Middle East” (13).

Burton has divided his book into six parts. The first part gives a definition of Biblical Africa. The second part discusses the relationship between African ethnicity and geographical location. This is then followed by the third section which explains the openness of Africans to the gospel message. The fourth division sketches the development and spread of Islam in the Biblical land. In part five Burton explores the influence of European colonialism, and then concludes with an evaluation of the Bible in modern land of Ham.